Movie review: Hangover’ sequel feels raunchy and recycled

Al Alexander

Tuesday

May 31, 2011 at 12:01 AMMay 31, 2011 at 12:38 AM

It’s all happening again, just like last time. I wake up inside a movie theater with no memory of what occurred the previous 100 minutes. Why does this keep happening to me when I go to a flick with “Hangover” in its title? Is it something in the popcorn? My soda?

It’s all happening again, just like last time. I wake up inside a movie theater with no memory of what occurred the previous 100 minutes. Why does this keep happening to me when I go to a flick with “Hangover” in its title? Is it something in the popcorn? My soda? Anyway, the only thing I can vividly recall is being in Thailand, where some tiny Asian man (Ken Jeong) was showing me his junk. No, no, not his boat. His JUNK, as in his twig and berries! Hideous sight, that junk. But wait! I’m starting to remember even more junk, this time attached to a gaggle of transvestite prostitutes.

Obviously, JUNK is the impetus behind “The Hangover Part II,” an environmentally sound sequel consisting entirely, I’m told, of recycled material geared toward tapping into America’s disposable income. OK, its trash with an emphasis on green, as in money, but the benevolent artisans at Warner Bros. wouldn’t steer us wrong, would they? After all, what do they have to gain besides hundreds of millions of dollars? I’d feel better about this whole sequel thing, though, if I could only recollect precisely what happened during it. Perhaps I should follow the lead of Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and retrace my steps to figure out just what happened.

I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it started out in L.A., where the three “roofie” victims from the first film – along with their often MIA pal, Doug (Justin Bartha) – were preparing to travel to Asia for Stu’s impending nuptials to a lovely young Thai woman (Jamie Chung) with a sourpuss father (Nirut Sirichanya). No sign, alas, of Stu’s last flame, the Vegas stripper played so charmingly by Heather Graham. But then, women will have little place in this go-round, where even the hookers tend to be men.

Anywho, I remember the hirsute Alan, annoying as a cloud of swarming gnats, spouting unfunny drivel at the rehearsal dinner, then the lights go out. Like me, Phil, Stu and Alan wake up the next morning in a stupor. This time, though, there’s a monkey in the room instead of a tiger, and Stu is nursing a facial tattoo instead of an extracted tooth.

Also in attendance are Jeong’s obnoxious (and nude) drug dealer, Mr. Chow, and a severed finger belonging to the bride’s 16-year-old brother, Teddy (Mason Lee, son of Ang). But I kept confusing the finger with Mr. Chow’s junk, which was roughly the same size, albeit still attached.

After that, it all just seems like a blur and lot of noise, as we visited all the same places (police station, drug dens, etc.) we went to in Vegas, but only now with Thailand as the backdrop. There was also a cameo or two, most notably by Paul Giamatti, slumming as an alleged drug lord. He, like my search for clues to liking “The Hanover Part II,” proved fruitless. But I did detect a strong odor of desperation on the part of co-writer-director Todd Phillips, as he guiltlessly sacrificed artistic integrity for whoring after a fast buck off his soon-to-be- less-loyal fans.

It got so lazy, he even threw in a superfluous car chase and stupid monkey tricks to try and steer attention away from the fact that this time the Wolf Pack had no fangs, just junk, left limp and dangling in the southeast Asian breeze.

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